City officials said Thursday that the garden planted at the corner of Main Street and Quail Road by Dan Nelson could remain while discussions go on with Nelson and his sister Sarah Nelson Carroll about how to make it legitimate. The garden was planted on city ground but without city permission.

City spokesman Rigo Leal said that a retroactive approval of the garden was "possible. It's very possible, even."

"We're trying to see what the appropriate process is that he should have followed and then try to walk him through it," Leal said. "We're trying to honor what he's done."

That's a warmer response than Nelson originally got on Wednesday. Charles Kamenides, the city's parks maintenance and sanitation operations manager, initially told him that while he sympathized with what Nelson was trying to do, he hadn't gone through the right channels, and would have to remove the plants by the end of the week.

Since then, Carroll said, she had spoken with Kamenides herself and with several other city officials — and apparently, she said, other residents had, too. The support from the public has been overwhelming, she said.

"I read the comments on Facebook and 90 percent of them are positive," she said. "I love it — on Facebook, you never see positive comments."

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Kamenides said he and Carroll had talked further about finding a way to make the bootleg garden fit a "use of public places permit."

"It might stay the way it is, or it might need to be adjusted a bit," Kamenides said of the garden. "I'd love to see us reach a solution on this that is beneficial to us and Mr. Nelson."

Part of what makes the situation complicated, city officials said, is that the spot is near Colo. Highway 287. That means it's regulated by the Colorado Department of Transportation, which has its own rules for how landscaping can and can't be done. It also means that if a permit is issued, the city will be watching the area to make sure it remains safe, "given its proximity to a four-lane state highway."

Leal said that if a short-term solution could be agreed on, the garden would be allowed to remain through the growing season.

"There's complicated hurdles to get over and we'll get over them," Leal said. "Short term, the garden stays."

City officials said they don't believe the site is an "optimum location" for community gardening in the long term. Arterial landscaping is expected to be put in the area as that part of Main Street becomes more developed over the next several years.

Nelson, a Longmont resident, initially started the work by cleaning flood debris from the corner. After that, he admits, he got carried away. Now the corner has four raised beds, flowers, herbs and even strawberries and potatoes.

It also has supporters. One woman sent the Times-Call an email offering to buy the plants if the city made him take them down. Another man emailed the City Council, asking that the garden stay.

"The garden looks much better than the trash heap that used to sit at this corner," resident Paul McNealy said in the email. "We should support this kind of activity, not dismiss his efforts."

And then there's Carroll's three children, who have been joining their uncle every Friday to help the garden along. That includes her 3-year-old autistic son Preston, for whom this much interaction is very unusual.

"My little boy has sensory issues, and he's playing in dirt," Nelson Carroll said. "This is huge for him."

She hopes that the garden can end up becoming an example, both of what can be done for a community and of the right way to do it without causing a ruckus.

"Let's try to get more people involved in this the right way," she said.

Dan Nelson waters a plant he put in at the corner of Quail Road and Main Street in Longmont on Wednesday afternoon. The city originally was going to make Nelson remove the garden, but now is trying to reach a compromise with him. (Matthew Jonas / Longmont Times-Call)

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